To understand Mullaney and Garrett’s arguments, you really only need to understand how the progressive tax bracket works. The way the U.S. system is structured, you pay tax on income in increasing increments — which currently go from 0% to 37%. When you earn income from a salary, you’re taxed at different rates as you move through the income brackets: After the standard or itemized deductions, the first $11,925 is taxed at 10%, income from $11,926 to $48,475 is taxed at 12%, and so on. The average of those ...

If you’re bringing in roughly $130,000, you have some room to do conversions before you hit that threshold, at least until you have to start taking RMDs. If you don’t touch your IRAs, your combined $2.3 million could be worth $3.7 million by the time you hit the age you have to start taking money out. Your combined RMDs once you both start could be $140,000 a year; that’s considering average 7% growth, and is just a rough estimate. Even with just your pension income, you would mostly likely be paying tax on ...